It looks like Evans has seen the Snitch!
Have I? Yes, there it is. Shouldn’t I be going after it? Yes, Minister, I know nobody ever beat Lord Voldemort at Quidditch before, but an Order of Merlin, Second Class? Really, it’s too much. No, I don’t fancy taking over your job either, sir. I have a lot on my plate just now, what with the O.W.L.’s starting tomorrow. They started today? Oh bloody hell.
What? Oh sorry Melinda! I forgot the match wasn’t over. Yes, the Snitch, the Snitch. I need to find it before the Death Eaters do, or the Sorting Hat will be cross with me again.
Now why is Pettigrew wearing the Sorting Hat? It doesn’t really suit him.
Stop yelling, Melinda, I am focusing on the game, thank you very much.
The stands are hissing and everyone’s gone. How could they leave me alone with Voldemort? He’s just sitting there, snacking on snakes like he hasn’t a care in the world. Rude, if you ask me. Wait, I shouldn’t have said that, now he’s coming for me. A laugh to freeze the blood in your veins. But he doesn’t want the Snitch, he’s after Athena. You can’t have her, she’s my owl! What do you want her for anyway?
I get it. I’ve been looking in a mirror all this time. That makes perfect sense. There I am, eyes flashing red. No, wrong. Eyes clear blue, like the lake. Hm, wrong again. Emerald green, that’s more like it. But now it’s Potter’s reflection. Get out of my dream, you stupid prat! I said in your dreams, not mine.
A bolt of green lightening streaking the sky and Potter’s falling, broom and all, down, down down, into the endless abyss. I am guarding the goalposts, Melinda, but in case you didn’t notice, I could get expelled for this. I could get expelled and all you think about is breakfast?
~*~*~*~
Lily turned in her bed, keeping her eyes squeezed shut, trying to cling to some shred of the dream she had been having only seconds before. It was too late; she was awake. Feeling rather disappointed, she groped about for her wand, found it, and opened the curtains of her four-poster bed. Melinda Marchbanks stood by the door, about to head down to breakfast.
“Finally, you’re up,” said Melinda, pausing for moment. “It only took me four hundred tries to wake you. Abigail and Serena already went down.”
“Sorry. I was having an interesting dream… think I was playing in the Quidditch World Cup.”
Melinda replied by snorting with laughter. Lily couldn’t blame her; Melinda played Keeper for Gryffindor and was very good at it. Meanwhile she, Lily, got knocked off her broom by the very sight of a Quaffle, as they had both discovered last summer. She could fly well enough, just not when heavy things were being thrown at her.
“Do you want me to wait while you get ready?” Melinda asked once she’d regained her composure.
“No, go ahead, I’ll be down soon,” said Lily.
She struggled to remember some other--any other--part of the dream, as Melinda turned and left, but it was no use. Like so many dreams before it, this one had sunk seamlessly back into the subconscious from whence it came.
******
Gray clouds were hanging heavily over the Great Hall when Lily finally arrived. She spotted Melinda and Serena midway down the Gryffindor table and joined them.
“Why are you looking like I just insulted your favorite auntie?” Melinda was asking.
“Because,” Serena pouted, “you know you’re supposed to be suffering by my side in the library, and you went ahead and got detention anyway!”
“What’d you get detention for?” Lily asked, helping herself to some eggs and toast.
“Accidentally walloping Slytherin’s captain in the head with my broom,” Melinda replied casually. “Anyway,” she said, turning back to Serena, “you’ve got Lily to suffer with.”
“Actually, no,” Lily said. “Well, not for long. I’ve got a prefects’ meeting tonight.”
“That’s odd. How come?” Serena asked.
“Don’t know, they didn’t say. But you’ll still have Abigail,” Lily pointed out, now looking around the table. “Where is Abigail?”
“I saw her talking to some girls at the Hufflepuff table a few minutes ago,” said Melinda. “I suspect Clementine Harper and Eustace Womple have split up again.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Serena sighed. Abigail had a habit of bringing in scraps of useless gossip, rather like Lily’s cat at home brought in mangled rodents in hopes of praise. But when Abigail returned, she was looking a touch more upset than the break-up of Clementine Harper and Eustace Womple would have warranted.
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked, taking another piece of toast. Abigail didn’t answer; Lily looked up and saw tears in her eyes.
“It’s Audrey Davis,” she finally said, with a shuddery breath. Lily had a sinking feeling that she already knew what this was about. It would be the fifth time that year some student had gotten horrible news involving their family and Lord Voldemort’s Death Eaters. She braced herself as Abigail continued.
“They tortured her parents, in front of her little sister. Some time last night. Her dad’s in St. Mungo’s now and her sister hasn’t spoken a word since it happened.”
They sat in gloomy silence, pondering this latest atrocity. Lily didn’t know Audrey too well since she was the year below them. She tried to push from her mind the image of a little girl watching her mum and dad on the floor, screaming in agony while dark hooded figures laughed mercilessly. She set down her piece of toast, not so hungry anymore, and was silently thankful that her family were all Muggles. Muggles who would never cross the path of Lord Voldemort.
Looking around the table again, determined to think of something less depressing, Lily’s eyes fell on the boys from her year, huddled and whispering excitedly. They had been acting like that for the last couple days and it made her uneasy. Any day that Lily did not have to deal with that particular band of thugs was a good day in her book, but their recent behavior had to be the calm before the storm. She only hoped that whatever havoc they were about to wreak would be wreaked far from her.
******
They had Potions that afternoon. It served as a good enough distraction from the woes of the world, if only for an hour. Lily’s potion already looked better than all the others at her table, and she was happily adding extra dried billywig stings in an attempt to turn it a deeper shade of scarlet.
At the table in front of her, Sirius Black was evidently content with the bright red hue of his potion. He was sitting by his cauldron and giving the Slytherin side of the room an appraising look.
Professor Slughorn waddled over to the girls’ station.
“Lily, Lily!” he greeted, taking a cursory glance at her work and giving the usual nod of approval. He might have taken more time to admire her ingenuity, but today he was looking rather excited about something else. “I’m having an end-of-term get together, you know, the usual crowd,” he explained jovially. “Can I count on the honor of your presence?”
“Thank you, Professor, I would love to,” she replied. That wasn’t strictly true. Lily had always felt a bit uncomfortable with Slughorn’s unabashed favoritism among his students. She had tried, for years, to politely explain this to him. He usually accused her of being too modest or too clever, and showed no signs of having understood her point. Yet he seemed so fond of her--so impressed by what he called her “natural aptitude for potions”--that she couldn’t bring herself to boycott the many exclusive social events he hosted. She had finally resolved to leave the matter alone, for fear of sounding like a broken record, and enjoy the Slug Club’s membership perks. Anyway, she could always goad him about his heartily denied pure blood biases instead.
Slughorn turned to ask Abigail the same question; her parents and several uncles had high-ranking jobs at the Ministry of Magic.
Lily was trying to decide if her potion was scarlet enough when all hell broke loose at the Slytherin tables. She looked up to see an oddly shaped black bird attacking two of the girls, who were screeching and trying to hide behind their cauldrons. Then she noticed Severus Snape standing next to them, completely bald, and realized that the strange bird was, in fact, his hair.
Lily burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. The sight of Snape’s bald, chalk white head was too comical, and his twisted expression wasn’t helping matters any. He stood transfixed, watching his greasy black tresses whip around the table.
The Gryffindor side of the room was roaring with laughter. Remus Lupin was doubled up, Peter Pettigrew was gasping for breath, and James Potter had tears rolling down his face. Serena was gripping the table for support, Melinda was clutching at the stitch in her side, and Abigail’s face now matched Lily’s potion. Sirius had actually sunk to his knees and was pounding the floor with his fist between howls. A few of the Slytherins had hastily retreated from the action and were laughing now too, in spite of themselves.
The hair chased the girls purposefully around their table. One of them swatted wildly at it with her wand, managing to knock it into a cauldron at last. It floated for a moment and then sank with a loud burble. The potion immediately turned a funny shade of brown.
Slughorn, his face looking like a dam about to burst, hurried over to the cauldron and waved his wand. The potion disappeared and he levitated the now lifeless tangle of hair back to its owner. Snape continued to gape at it for a few seconds before reaching out to take it.
The Gryffindors were having collective hysterics. Snape, tightly clutching his hair, looked positively murderous as Slughorn steered him out of the room and pointed him toward Madam Pomfrey. Lily noticed Slughorn was biting his lip very hard.
“It was Black and Potter, Professor!” Snape shrieked in the corridor. If Slughorn gave an answer, it was too soft to be heard over the din inside. The Potions master did not return for several minutes after Snape’s continued howls of “Black” and “Potter” had faded away.
He had rearranged his face into the sternest expression possible when he finally strode back into the classroom. With his enormous belly sticking out even more than usual, he surveyed the remaining students. They were all--every last one of them--flushed and panting like they had run a very intense race.
Slughorn’s eyes narrowed in the direction of James and Sirius, but he seemed to decide that he could not interrogate them while keeping a straight face, and dismissed the class.
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Lily Evans and the Golden Lyre by capella_black
Chapter Notes: Disclaimer: Most of these characters and places belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm only borrowing them for a little fun. Please don't sue me.
Although this is mainly a story about Lily's sixth year, some things needed to be set up at the end of fifth year. We begin a few weeks before the O.W.L.s and in the middle of a dream.
[Also, feedback makes my day!]
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